Society

David and Victoria Beckham are the latest celebs to be Markled. In case you don’t know what this is, Cockburn includes the Urban Dictionary definition below: Markled: To be "Markled" is when a new friend appears in your life, bombards you with attention and favor requests, once you are secure in the friendship things settle down, however, after a period of no communication you attempt to contact your friend only to be ignored and ghosted without warning, explanation and every avenue of open communication is now closed and you are effectively deleted from the friends life once you have served your purpose and are no longer of any use to her as she has now ascended the next rung of the social ladder.

Prince Harry’s recent run of bad luck is continuing, after it was ruled Thursday that his phone-hacking claims against a UK publisher have been thrown out by a High Court judge.  The judge also dismissed Harry's conspiratorial claim that there was a “secret agreement” between Buckingham Palace and the British press, calling the arrangement Harry described “implausible.” In his ruling, the judge said that the prince’s case had “not reached the necessary threshold of plausibility and cogency.” Harry’s lawsuit accusing the publisher of the Sun tabloid of unlawfully snooping on him, can go to trial.

Is Gavin Newsom the latest big name to snub Meghan Markle and Prince Harry? Royal author and socialite Lady Colin Campbell claimed that the California governor has blocked Markle’s phone number in an attempt to distance himself, as her political demands continue to fall on deaf ears. https://twitter.com/gbnews/status/1683593356524363777?s=46&t=KTzG0soGgiCKUdkuiUQOwA “Gavin Newsom has been harassed by Meghan to such an extent for her putting forward her idea that they should allow her to step into Dianne Feinstein’s shoes, which would incidentally give her access to the Intelligence Committee because that goes along with the seat, and Dianne Feinstein is a member of the Intelligence Committee," she said on GB News Monday.

The Washington Post is collapsing. Once one of America’s great media institutions, the paper lost $100 million last year and has shed 500,000 subscribers. Recent reports reveal that Post owner Jeff Bezos is going to be more hands-on to try and save the paper. Yet trying to get employees of the Post to do their jobs is like trying to get dogs to play baseball. Dogs just aren’t interested in baseball, and the breed of journalist now at the Post is just not interested in journalism. Always a liberal paper, the Post is now pure propaganda.

Gone are the days when local news anchors and weathermen went viral for unfortunate slips of the tongue or medical emergencies. Now these local TV staples are dancing and singing their way through their on-air reports, supposedly with the goal of making the news more "fun." Of course, these silly moments also coincidentally help these news anchors build their followings on TikTok. Nick Kosir, a former meteorologist for a local Fox affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina was one of the first local anchors to enjoy viral fame. He first garnered headlines by posting copycat versions of NFL quarterback Cam Newton's wildest fashion moments on his social media accounts, then exploded after nailing a dance challenge while wearing a business suit.

Now that the weakest Wimbledon since 1973 — the year of the boycott — is over, a few thoughts about Pam Shriver’s recent revelations that her coach Don Candy, deceased, was also her lover. Candy was fifty at the time, while Pam was seventeen, which in my book made Candy a lucky guy, assuming it was legal. The age of consent varies from place to place, and the only time I had to defend myself was when an irate father, whose twenty-eight-year-old daughter I had dated, rang me early in the morning and complained about me being seventy-two. “There is no age limit as far as being too old,” I told him. He rudely hung up on me. But before I go on about Pam Shriver and her oldie coach, a few comments are in order about how Oprah has taken over tennis and even Wimbledon.

After five years of marriage, rumors are swirling that Prince Harry and Meghan are set to part ways. Earlier this week, RadarOnline reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are “taking time apart” to heal and rebuild their bond. “They’re trying to figure out what hit them. Harry doesn’t fit in Meghan’s tacky Tinseltown world,” a source told the outlet, adding that he’s hoping to “find himself.” RadarOnline also claimed that Harry is planning a solo trip to Africa to film a documentary, saying that the prince thinks of the continent as his second home and a place where he feels "most like himself.

The “Femail Today” section of the Daily Mail often features such can’t-miss content as Doja Cat “flashing her bare bust beneath fishnet body stocking in VERY racy shoot” and Emily Ratajkowski’s every move. Lately, though, there’s been a shift in the Mail’s focus: pregnant women are everywhere! Femail last week, for instance, featured as many women with child — Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna and Serena Williams — in its top stories as women without. Kourtney Kardashian is regularly pictured “showing off” her growing baby bump (today it was in a TINY string bikini). When Lohan gave birth this week, the Mail lauded the occasion and reported how Lohan and her husband are “‘in love’ with their new addition.

ESG, or environmental, social and corporate governance, has taken the financial world by storm. It first hit the scene in a 2004 United Nations report that argued the financial sector could rack up more profits if it focused on carbon dioxide reduction and UN-approved progressive causes and has ballooned into a big, green financial juggernaut. In 2021, ESG assets under management hit an estimated $35 trillion. Bloomberg projects that by 2025 $53 trillion will be invested in ESG vehicles — that’s over one third of global assets under management and over five times 2007’s total of $10 trillion of ESG assets.  The main thrust is to hasten the renewable energy transition to solve climate change by diverting capital from fossil projects to various green projects.

The Alaska Department of Corrections reversed its policy banning alcoholic wine from religious ceremonies in prison facilities on Friday, following a report from The Spectator. The interim policy, which was issued on June 6 and signed by Commissioner Jennifer Winkelman, stated that "no altar wine or other alcoholic beverages will be used by anyone who is involved with any activity. The use of a non-alcoholic substitute (juice) for altar wine may be considered." The policy effectively banned Catholic masses, which require alcoholic wine in order to be considered valid, from the prison system. Catholic prisoners would thus be unable to fulfill their holy obligation to attend Mass each Sunday.

The Alaska Department of Corrections has instituted a new policy that banned the use of altar wine during religious ceremonies, effectively barring Catholic Mass from being offered at correctional facilities. "No altar wine or other alcoholic beverages will be used by anyone who is involved with any activity. The use of a non-alcoholic substitute (juice) for altar wine may be considered," the interim policy established on June 6 reads. 816.01-IPPMDownload The interim policy effectively bans Catholic masses, which require a priest to consecrate and consume both bread and wine in order for the Mass to be considered valid.

Consumer technology is, usually, profoundly dull. I love technology, but even I must concede the undeniable. A new pair of light gray, plastic cupped, noise-canceling headphones are functional, and often great, but they hardly get the blood rushing. Yet another gray Windows notebook has released! I struggle to stifle a yawn. And then — worst of all — are the phones. In the sixteen years since the first iPhone debuted, smartphones have become ubiquitous; the market is so large and flooded that innovation is no longer worth the risk. Phones are not cool new devices, but tools. You don’t care how a hammer looks; you care about the price and if it can hit a nail. The latest iPhone is a tool for accessing the internet and taking selfies. Most Android phones are the same but cheaper.

Prince Harry is like a cat: apparently he has nine lives. Despite his three-year campaign to become the most privileged victim — after stepping down from the British royal family to focus on a “new charitable entity” and then signing multi-million dollar deals with streaming platforms, not to mention making the last years of his grandmother’s life a living nightmare — the people of America apparently still prefer the whining brat to his brother Prince William, the future king. According to a new poll by YouGov, Prince Harry was liked by 48 percent of Americans, and disliked by 24 percent during the second quarter of 2023. This gives him a net approval rating of +24.